100 Days – Week of Quilting – Featured Quilt 6

Today’s featured quilt was pieced by Jacquie Gering and long arm quilted by Angela Walters.

You can read about Jacquie’s inspiration for her Low Volume quilt on her blog, Tallgrass Prairie Studio. Continue reading here for Angela’s answers to some questions about this quilt and her process.

Can you tell us a little more about the process of quilting Jacquie’s Low Volume quilt? For instance, how did you determine the quilting design?

“Jacquie was kind enough to let me use some of her quilt tops for my book, so my normal process of quilting was a little different on this quilt. With this quilt, I wanted to show that custom quilting doesn’t have to be hard or intense. I used this quilt to show that instead of using one allover design, using two different designs created a whole different look for the quilt. Once I had decided that was how I wanted to quilt it, I quilted a flowery design in just the white portions of the quilt. In the other portions of the quilt, I quilted a leaf design (both of which are shown in the book). By letting the quilt top act as the guide for my quilting, I didn’t have to mark the quilt or even think too much about it while I was quilting it. I chose the two designs to complement the softness of the colors in her quilt and am very happy with how it turned out!”

We see a lot of quilters puzzling over what thread color to use for quilting. How do you decide what color thread to use?

“For me, picking out the thread is almost as fun as picking out the quilting designs! I love to joke, “if quilting is my therapy, threads are my meds!”. I, personally, love to use thread that blends into the quilt top. I want people to see the quilt first, and then the quilting. I usually audition a thread on the quilt by laying several different colors on the quilt top. The ones that shows the least, wins! I wrote a blog post that also talks about how to pick out thread.”

As a long arm quilter, you must handle quilts made by a bunch of different people. Is it ever difficult to send them back once you’re done with the quilting?

“It never gets easier! I like to think about the quilts as foster kids. They belong to someone else, but they come into my life for little while, I love on them and then send them back. But the great thing about quilting for people in blogland, I get to see them again in pictures! Sometimes, I will forget a quilter, but I rarely forget a quilt that I have worked on!”